Hold Congress Accountable

About FreedomConnector

Find activists, groups, and events right in your own neighborhood. Join FreedomConnector to get involved and learn more about key issues threatening our economic freedom. Whether you’re looking for like-minded people, trying to boost your existing group’s impact, or simply trying to stay up on current events, FreedomConnector is the place to start. See what’s happening in your state today!

Massachusetts-based A123 Systems Inc AONE -68.75%, maker of advanced batteries for electric automobiles, has announced it expects to miss payments on some of its debt, and may need to seek bankruptcy protection.

Partially lost in the news about this miraculous appearance of a financial savior is the fact that any number of A123 employees may soon be added to Obama's "jobs lost" tally.

Johnson Controls planned to keep the factories running but said it was too early to give details about A123 employees or customers.

On Wednesday, another solar company, Satcon Technology, announced that it would be seeking Chapter 11 protection. This despite the fact that it had just received $3 million from a DOE grant at the beginning of this year.

It appears that American taxpayers will recoup exactly zero dollars from this "investment".

Solyndra LLC, the solar-panel maker that received a $535 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee before going bankrupt, won’t be able to provide lenders ranking ahead of the government with a full recovery, the company’s financial adviser Eric Carlson said today.

The failed solar-panel maker generated about $117 million from assets sales, including the proposed sale of its manufacturing facility to a unit of Dublin-based Seagate Technology Plc (STX) for $90.3 million, subject to competing offers at a Nov. 14 auction, Carlson testified under questioning from Solyndra lawyer Maxim Litvak.

So to recap: the Obama administration gave a $500 million dollar loan guarantee to a company that was dependent on sky-high polysilicon prices, but simultaneously threw hundreds of millions of dollars at domestic polysilicon producers. The latter subsidies - when combined with billions in indirect subsidies to solar producers and consumers - inevitably helped stoke overcapacity in the domestic and global polysilicon markets and a resulting collapse in polysilicon prices that - wait for it - eviscerated Solyndra's business plan and ultimately killed the company. And when Solyndra declared bankruptcy, the Obama administration immediately blamed China.

An examination of the negative consequences of federal interference in the market through subsidization and regulation would fill several volumes. The history is there for all to see and it reads like a "how not to" primer for business, yet Washington is in the grip of people who believe that they're on our side and "helping".

The U.S. Export-Import Bank is one of the most blatant and indefensible examples of corporate cronyism by the federal government. Started 80 years ago as a protectionist, New Deal program, the Bank lingers on like a festering sore on America’s lip that just won’t heal - because Congress can’t leave it alone.

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) had been in office for less than two months when she, in February 2009, cast the deciding vote for President Obama's wasteful $830 billion stimulus bill. After the passage of the measure, the North Carolina Democrat blasted out a press release to spin her vote stating that "this legislation delivers on our simple promise to change the way things work in Washington -- for working families and not for special interests."

By now, most people following the continuing saga of the U.S. Export-Import Bank have heard about how it guaranteed loans to now-bankrupt solar energy company Solyndra. Solyndra was a big news story when it went bust, because of the stimulus money it took and the preferential treatment it was given because green energy mandates took preference over sensible investment.

Late last week, the Obama administration announced a month-long push back for second-year Obamacare enrollments, placing the enrollment date conveniently past election day. With that move, the administration will successfully push back the horrifying optics of disastrous rate hikes, lending a hand to Democrats up for election in 2014.

Our government doesn’t have a lot of extra cash, but that doesn’t seem to stop them from handing it out to their buddies. That’s not really a fiscally responsible way to live but, hey, that’s never stopped them before. It’s kind of like loaning money to your friend who has a great idea that may or may not work, but you’re willing to take the risk.

Portland, Oregon likes to fancy itself as ahead of the curve, and more educated than your average city. We're routinely listed as among the most wired cities in the nation, and typically have a more educated workforce than most. Our biggest mission, it seems, is to become the greenest city imaginable. But our government leaves a lot to be desired, with liberal pipe dreams dominating over such considerations as reality and common sense.

Frequently, entitlement reform is discussed among policymakers as a way to reduce government spending, but the entitlement reform discussed often concerns individual entitlements, not those directed toward corporations. A recent examination of the federal tax code by the Cato Institute’s Tad DeHaven found that each year corporate welfare in the tax code cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion.

Green energy failures under President Barack Obama’s Department of Energy are nothing new. However, it is becoming apparent that the cronyism behind these loans could lead all the way to the White House.

President Obama’s ever-growing list of green energy failures now has one more company. Solar panel manufacturer Abound Solar is under criminal investigation for possible securities fraud, consumer fraud, and financial misrepresentation in Colorado. Of this particular company, he said in 2009 that it would create 2,000 jobs in construction and 1,500 permanent jobs. Instead, the plant was closed in July and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, leaving 125 workers unemployed.